With the recent technology advance in Internet based communications, television broadcast has entered a new age where communication infrastructures are less and less based on analogical, with cable or hertzian terrestrial networks. IP-based digital video is today becoming a standard, leveraging the broadband communication capabilities of new digital networks: satellite based, or cable based, or xDSL (i.e. ADSL, SDSL, etc.) based or even wireless based (3G) infrastructures.
Multichannel packages are becoming a common offering, often through Internet Service Providers, that TV operators propose to an increasing range of subscribers. With such packages, it becomes today common that subscribers can receive more than hundred different channels through their Internet connection.
A current trend for implementing TV over the Internet is based on the “Multicast” protocol, which may also be used in any other network using the Internet Protocol (IP).
The Multicast is a technology enabling for one host (hereafter called server) a connection to all the users hosts belonging to the multicast group, as depicted hereafter in FIG. 1. The stream is sent via the network and then the users could subscribe to be part of the multicast group via an Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) command. In such a case, one stream is emitted from one server and received by several users hosts.
Advertising is and will remain a significant revenue contributor for TV channel operators, including in the field of digital IP TV. The efficiency, and hence its value, of advertisements in TV programs is highly dependent on its capacity to accurately target the viewers that may correspond to the object of such an advertisement.
Since several years, the advertising clips are broadcasted to try to reach a given audience, based first on the channel it is broadcast on, and also on the timing. As an example, clips targeting a K-12 audience are commonly available when cartoons are broadcasted, while automotive industry clips are commonly available during a Formula 1 grand prix broadcast. Although this approach can claim to reach a targeted audience, there is no way to really cope with the personal profile, e.g. buying profile, of the TV watcher.
Customizing some parts of a program within a common main channel's program may also be of some interest for meeting more accurately the wishes or needs of users receiving these programs, or for building programs interacting with the users.